Cook County pays $600,000 to Black Man in Chicago Police Torture Case

 

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From [HERE] and [HERE] Cook County commissioners agreed Monday to pay $600,000 to settle the county's portion of a lawsuit brought by a freed prison inmate whose allegations of police torture have shined a spotlight on former Mayor Richard Daley.

By voting to settle, commissioners removed county government as a defendant in the case brought by Michael Tillman, who alleges that detectives working for then-Chicago police Lt. Jon Burge tortured a confession out of him in a 1986 rape and murder case.

After more than 23 years behind bars, Tillman was freed in January 2010 when a special prosecutor said his conviction depended on "coerced statements." Tillman has said he was beaten until he vomited blood, had a plastic bag wrapped around his head and had soda pop poured into his nostrils for three days until he provided a confession in the death of 42-year-old Betty Howard, who lived in the same apartment building as Tillman at the time.

The allegations against the city, Burge, other officers and Daley remain in court. Daley, who has denied all allegations against him, is accused in the civil suit of conspiring to cover up torture both as state's attorney when Tillman was first convicted and later as mayor.

"I want to commend President (Toni) Preckwinkle and the County Board for fairly and reasonably reaching this rather small but important part of the case," said Flint Taylor, an attorney for Tillman.

In November, Tillman won a rare federal court ruling that kept Daley as a defendant. As a result, a July 13 date has been set for a deposition.

According to Tillman's lawsuit, former Assistant State's Attorney Timothy Frenzer was in a South Side police station during most of Tillman's interrogation and knew Tillman was "being subjected to torture and abuse," the lawsuit alleged.

The settlement removed Frenzer as a defendant. The county admitted no liability.

Burge is in federal prison after being convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice for lying in a civil lawsuit that he ever knew about or used torture to obtain confessions.

The city is paying for Daley's defense. It has shelled out more than $30 million in legal fees and settlement payments in cases alleging torture under Burge in the 1970s and '80s.

In other County Board action, Preckwinkle proposed an ordinance to extend county ethics rules on lobbying, conflicts of interest, nepotism and political contributions to appointed members of boards and commissions.

The proposal, which was referred to committee, comes after county Inspector General Patrick Blanchard reported that three appointed trustees for the Northfield Woods Sanitary District paid themselves nearly $264,000 in a period of less than four years.

"As a result of some questionable conduct on the part of folks in some of these commissions, we thought it was appropriate to apply our ethics requirements to everybody," Preckwinkle said.

Tillman, is one of many young black men who claim to have been beaten by police under Burge’s command at the Pullman Area headquarters, 727 E. 111th St. It contended the county was partially responsible because officials with the state’s attorney’s felony review office, which decides what charges are filed against people arrested by police, went along and sought charges against him.

But Commissioner Earlean Collins, D-Chicago, while not opposing the settlement, said she was concerned the county would be willing to settle the lawsuit before Chicago city government, particularly because she sees this issue as a city-based problem.

"Why do we settle before they do?" Collins asked. "This is a Chicago police matter."

Collins said she fears there will be more legal action filed against Cook County because of the county showing a willingness to pay financial settlements, although representatives of the state’s attorney’s office told her Monday the "county is released" from future responsibility if this settlement is approved.

Tillman was 20 at the time of his 1986 arrest, and he ultimately wound up spending 23 years in prison for a murder conviction before being freed in 2010.

Burge is serving a 4½-year federal prison sentence in North Carolina following a 2010 conviction on a charge of perjury and obstruction of justice. It was found that his testimony in a 2003 lawsuit alleging civil rights violations was incorrect when he testified under oath that he never witnessed or participated in torture of police suspects.

That conviction was all prosecutors could get against Burge, who was fired in 1993 and left Chicago to live in Florida. By the time prosecutors got around to investigating the claims of police brutality occurring in the early 1980s in the Pullman neighborhood, the statute of limitations for relevant criminal charges had expired.